Poll: Favourite fantasy author?

I don't do fiction, and I really don't do fantasy. Sorry.

I'm mostly with you.

Though the harry potter books are alright, so I went with her.

*shrugs*

Overall, though, I'm really not a fantasy fan.

i voted cooper, because i've been loving the dark is rising so much--why, oh why doesn't my library carry book 4?--but i love philip pullman just as much, maybe more. his dark materials is genius.

I didn't vote for Cooper, because I didn't recognize "Cooper" as "Susan".� D'oh.�

Although I like Pullman more.� And I will forever be a Madeleine L'Engle fan.�

oooh, yeah, madeleine l'engle. i reread a swiftly tilting planet about once a year.

Carey,

I'm a Cooper fan, too, and I've got the boxed set. Wanna borrow _Silver on the Tree_?

Star Wars is science Fantasy - so lucas and any other author in that genre would be other. (Alan Dean Foster was the only author I could see that portrayed the characters close to what the fans were used to seeing. I couldn't stand Zahn's or Anderson's books)

i liked timothy zahn, but i'll agree with you on kevin j. anderson. my brothers and i once wrote a whole anderson parody...i wish i knew where it was.

Compared to some of the newer authors, in the New Jedi Order, any of the older ones can be appreciated.

I voted for Tolkien but it is really a tie between him and James Branch Cabell. I'm surprised that Terry Pratchett wasn't a choice I know he has quite a following here. I'm sure C.S. Lewis would get some votes too.

Other favorites of mine are:

H.P. Lovecraft
Robert Howard
Clark Ashton Smith
T.H. White
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett aka Lord Dunsany
L.Sprague De Camp
Fletcher Pratt

He should have been a choice, but it's realy a dead heat between Prattchet and Tolkien for me.

I put Tolkien, but one of my favorites is Roger Zelazny - the Amber novels are definitely fantasy, but he did mix in some technology in many of his novels.

Need I say more?

yes

M hm.
LOTS more.

Yeah, you probably do ;-)
The Hobbit is good though.

OH to be a Herald!� ;)

Bah... I'm pulling for Wingsib, although a blue-eyed, talking horse and a snazzy white uniform would be pretty cool.

Of the list; Rowling, McCaffery, and Tolkein.� The Pratchett that I've read was entertaining... and I've loved A Wrinkle In Time since I had to read it in grade school.

Love Mercedes' books - only problem is that I need more darnit! :) I just finished rereading the Queen's Own trilogy for the upteenth time the other day. I love Anne McCaffrey's books too though.

They are taking a while... especially with all the backstory she could tell.� I think the new Alberich book is out... now, but I don't remember for certain.

I'm still waiting for the stories of Savil, Jadus, Rubrik, and anything out of Karse.

as of this posting, there are but two of us listing her as a fave... i know, i know, she's not a heavy-hitter like tolkien, and i'm a big harry potter fan, but i simply�*adore* the dragonriders of pern series, and i have for years and years (ever since dragonflight was required reading for my seventh grade english class).� she's very adept with characterization, and i keep hoping that one of these days science will progress to the point that i can impress a dragon of my very own.� hee.

I'd have to go with Terry Pratchett as my number one, but Tolkien and McCaffery as two of the best as well.� Too bad I don't have more time to read for relaxation, damned that graduate school....

Even though he's only written a handful of books and one of them is unreadable ("Mirror in the Mirror"), Micheal Ende is my fav just because of The Neverending Story. It's been my favourite book since I was in Grade 7. The only other one of his books i got through was Momo, which was also fabulous, though not as much so. As far as I know, he only wrote those three (at least as far as i can find). Can anbody prove me wrong?

Arr, the Neverending Story was so depressing.� I hated reading it and seeing him� change into a bad person...*sigh*

I remember Momo!
Actually, while I liked the book of Neverending Story better than the movie (and the moive is only the first half of the book, if that much) I have better images in my mind from Momo. It was just such a dark book...
(well, gray really ;-)

And stay far far away from the sequel to TNES movie.� It was apparently based on the second half of the book and it was horrible.� I wasn't able to bring myself to see the 3rd movie or any of the TV incarnations for fear of the story being even more ruined.

*sheepish*
I actually own it. It was a christmas present, and I can't turn those away. It's actually not too bad in a visual sense, but, yeah, the rest of it isn't worth it.
So far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with the book though. I know nothing about the third one

Wasn't Jack Black in the third one? I've never seen it, either.

My favorite fantasy author is Baum, original author of the Oz series, as well as some other stuff.� I also like Rowling, Pratchett, and Tolkien, although I'm not as much of a Tolkien fan as many people seem to be.

Love love loved Stephen Donaldson's ...um...Thomas Covenant series.

Also The Belgariad by David Eddings (both of them).

I liked Piers Anthony as a youth, but I don't think I would now.

I was completely addicted to Piers Anthony when I was in high school. Some of his stuff doesn't appeal to me as it used to but I still love his Incarnations of Immortality series.

simply because it was she who made me fall in love with Arthurian legend... and Morte d'Arthur that stayed my heart.�

and i suppose, to an extent Marion Zimmer Bradley and her mists of avalon... but Mary Stewart... wow...

This is a Canadian site and no one mentions Charles de Lint?
::puzzled::

this is a Canadian site? And here I thought Josh (and half the people here) lived in Ohio...

Actually, I thought the options were odd in general. There were a lot of people who I thought would have been on there instead.
*shrug*
Then again, I'm not all that active in fantsay circles, so I might just have skewered perceptions.

That's because I have no friggin' clue. :p

I'm actually not that big on Fantsay novels in general (which is odd, because I love the ideas/settings/and imagry) I like them, but I find a lot of them forget about story or setting in favor of "ooh, look at this neat history I created. Let me tell you every minute detail about it" *cough*Tolkein*cough* (he had neat ideas, the movies are great, but he should have written a travel-guide instead).

And I should mention that this desire is the exact reason I don't try and write fantsay, because I know I'm not interested in story as much as setting, but if I'm reading a novel, I tend to prefer a story. (this is part of why I've been drifting towards poetry lately too)

I voted Rowling, since she's the only person on there I actually like. Given more options, I would have voted for Pratchett or Pullman (anyone who hasn't read their books really needs to).

Though it isn't always easy to find her books anymore. Lovely collection published a few years ago.

Hee! I hadn't even scrolled to see your post before I made mine. :)

I like a lot of those folks as well, but Zenna Henderson still wins for me. I've had her books on the brain ever since I can remember.

I don't know what catagory you'd put him under...if not him the Rowling...but Adams rocks my world.�I shall always miss him.

Douglas was Science Fiction more than fantasy. The way I was Pratchett was first described to me was that what Adams did for SF Pratchett did for Fantasy.

I was told Adams was SciFi for people who hated SciFi...so I wasn't sure where that put him...besides the realm of genius of course.

Douglas Adams is fantasy cloaked as science fiction to me. What places him in my mind not far below Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Island as well as Eric Blair's 1984 and Animal Farm , is that he too tried to recontextualize contemporary thinking. Unlike so many other fantasy authors, these three were not content to merely retell simplistic fairy tales in terms of "good versus evil" in a modern guise. Adams was certainly less didactic in the way he went about it, but he was also way funnier. He certainly was not a science fiction writer in the vein of Isaac Asimov or Fred Hoyle.

? Is Eric Blair a pseudonym for George Orwell? George Orwell wrote 1984 and Animal Farm.

i'm glad that i ask such questions before blindly saying "you're a big idiot, idiot head!". you learn something new everyday :)

c'mon people, she can kick jk rowling's ass any day of the week.

in addition to many other people's.

if you haven't heard of her & you like really inventive, funny, character-driven fantasy which is sometimes found in the young adult section, maaaan are you going to be happy if you check her out.

Perhaps the most influential writer of the late 20th century.� Without him we wouldn't have such works like Harry Potter!� (Read "Books of Magic" the orginal series by him and tell me Rawlings *ISN'T* a hack!)� At age 42, he has basically been one of the world's most influential writers in the past 15 years.� 100 years from now, when Harry Potter is forgotten about like Scarlett, the sequel to Gone With the Wind, they will be teaching Gaiman in schools.

i don't think of neil as being straight fantasy...i just think of him as being a god. *swoon*

he's definitly good, but "the most influential writer of the late 20th century"? No, I don't think he can even come close.

I'm not sure who I would pick for that honor. Quite likely it'd be Douglas Adams, but I think Vonnegut has more of a claim (but you could argue that it's his eairler work, which while last half, aren't really "last part") and I could actually say the same of Ginsberg.

If we're talking about cultural impact, then I think Douglas Coupland wins simply by coining "Generation X"

I don't even think Gaiman can claim most influential comic book writer (or graphic novel if you will). I'd say Frank Miller has that hands-down.

Once again, I really like Neil Gaiman, but I think "most influential" is a huge leap.

First of all, get your facts straight.� Although Frank Miller revolutionized comics and opened doors, it was Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman that made comics for adults.��What Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore did for comics is still being felt today.� Frank Miller started a trend that died about 7 years ago.� Don't get me wrong, I love Frank Miller's work, but name me one "Grim and Gritty" book being published today?� Not one springs to mind that truly fits that defanition.� However, Alan Moore's humor and the depths of Neil Gaiman's 80 issue Mini-series is still being felt.� Alan Moore is more of a comic book writer.� He does stuff like classic pulp books and comics.� Neil Gaiman is a Fantisy writer threw and threw.� However, Frank Miller opened the door for them.� Hands down the most inflewential comic book writer is Alan Moore.

Neil Gaiman is a writer.� He is a writer's writer.� He writes Books.� It just so happens that some of them happen to be comic books.

What I ment to say was most influential FANTISY writer of the late 20th century.� Because Douglas Adams is a sci-fi writer, and Vonnegut is a nice guy and a lousy artist.� And even the phrase "generation x" is being forgotten like the bull-moose party.�

um, the first comics for adults were not by neil gaiman either.

r. crumb, art spiegelman & others were writing them in the 1960's, & will eisner (& others?) before that. they sometimes, but not always, had sci-fi & fantasy elements as well.

See, I was debating on naming Moore instead of Miller, but if we're going with influence, I think Miller still can claim more. We're not talking about longest-lasting influence, simply "most". In the end though, I will agree with Moore as an individual figure, but I think Miller has as much, maybe more, of a place as Gaiman.

He's a writers' writer? Funny? I thought I was a writer.

I'm not arguing for a moment the importance of comic books. I'm just saying that his influence does not extend nearly far enough from that medium to claim him the most infulential writer as a while.

I'll put him in the running for most infuential fantsay writer, although I think we'd have to decide how we're describing that. Would it be infulenced the most people? Most other writers?

Sure, Adams is science fiction, and if we're limiting it to fantsay, then that could rule him out. (Along with Vonnegut and Coupland).
Still, I don't see what Vonnegut's art has to do with his infuluence as a writer. What's more, I don't see how he's a lousy artist. Sure, he's not a realist, but I really like his style.
And so what if "Generation X" is being forgotten as a term? That doesn't mean it wasn't influential in the later part of the 1900s.

Uh ... no.

Sorry. I've only read one book of his -- stardust -- and I wasn't impressed enough to try any others. If anyone wants to recommend another that they think is better than stardust, I'll give it a try, but as things stand I don't think he ranks anywhere near "the most influential writer of the late 20th century." In the relatively tight genre of graphic novels, perhaps, but not in fantasy OR in literature at large.

And J.K. Rowling's a hack, yes, but she's a funny and inventive hack who got hordes of elementary school kids to read something worlds beyond Animorphs and Goosebumps "books". So kudos to Her Hackness.

lori, try good omens, his collaboration with terry pratchett.

American Gods was excellent. Stardust was the weakest I've read, though I still enjoyed it.

Ok. will give American Gods and the Pratchett collaboration a try. In that order, because I already know I like Terry Pratchett.

Are there any books featuring a school of magic people HAVEN'T claimed Harry Potter is ripping off? (Actually, I haven't yet heard anyone compare the Potter books to the Earthsea trilogy.)

Well, seeing how Warner brothers, who own DC Comics who own Books of magic has the rights to the film, I think Rawling inked her movie deal with them for fear of loosing a lawsuit.

And if that doesn't have you convenced, LOOK AT THE BLEEDING COVER!

How is that speculation supposed to convince me fully?

But I will admit, the cover artist of the HP books definitly seems to be infulenced by the cover artist of Gaiman's book. *nods*

i'd have to go with piers anthony (i.e. the apprentice adept series or the incarnations of immortality series) or tad williams (dragonbone chair was brilliant)

i love everyone on the list other than cooper (who is cooper?), have at least three books of each author in the "fave bookshelf"

If yes, Emilia-Atwater Rhodes is my fantasy author, not like the usual blood lusting vampiric stories of Anne Rice or anything, but seems more realistic, and makes you wonder. [shrugs] i like it. The first book she got published I believe she was at the young age of 13 - 14. I believe, not quite sure, I'll look later. ^_^

I especially love the "Gap" Series, but the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever" were seminal in my early reading experience!!! Try him out!